I recently upgraded work PC. One of the bigger hassles was setting up Toad and my Oracle connections again.
Steps (and mis-steps) I took:
- I downloaded an Instant Client from the Oracle Instant Client Downloads
- I selected a 32-bit client because I recall that Toad is picky about that, and a 10.2 client. I picked 10.2 primarily because I think that is what I had before, but also because I had downloaded a 64-bit 12.1 client that definitely did not work.
- I copied it to my computer: C:\oracle\instantclient_10_2. That location is arbitrary–you should be able to save it anywhere.
- I added an ORACLE_HOME environment variable (although this appears to have been unnecessary):
C:\> SET ORACLE_HOME=C:\oracle\instantclient_10_2 - I copied my old tnsnames.ora file to the same folder.
- Start Toad
Error!
“No valid Oracle Client found. Please note that Toad only supports 32 bit Oracle Client installations. Please view the release notes for additional system requirements.”
When I try to select a client from the installed clients menu, another error:
“You do not have any Oracle homes installed!”
I had to add the client to the PATH environment variable. There are a couple ways you can do this:
C:\> PATH=%PATH%;C:\oracle\instantclient_10_2- Go to Control Panel — System — Advanced System Settings — Environment Variables — System Variables — Edit
Toad then started without the error, but also did not recognize my tnsnames.ora file.
First I tried adding the TNS_ADMIN environment variable via the command-line:
C:\> SET TNS_ADMIN=C:\oracle\instantclient_10_2
For whatever reason, that did not solve the problem. I could echo the value back with echo %TNS_ADMIN%, but it did not appear under Environment Variables in the Control Panel.
I added TNS_ADMIN as a user environment variable in the Control Panel, restarted Toad, and then it recognized my tnsnames.ora file.